


Two Halves

by Macywacy



Series: Smoldering [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Royai - Freeform, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macywacy/pseuds/Macywacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s no wonder that two halves of the same whole would indulge in the freedom of themselves, no matter how many times the military’s laws told them they could not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Halves

There was tension in the room, so vivid and real that it could have been sliced to bits to with a knife. It wasn’t normally like this. It was never so quiet that each scratch of Riza’s pen against the rough texture of a form could be heard. They hadn’t spoken for a while, even though the other members of the team had practically ran out of the room as their lunch breaks crept nearer.

Of course, the boys had no idea what was truly going on.  They didn’t realize what the tension was from, though they made what they thought was a safe assumption that the Colonel had done something to annoy the Lieutenant once more. That wasn’t _far_ from the truth, but the truth in itself was a like a loaded gun and couldn’t be placed in any of their hands.

To make matters worse, they wouldn’t speak. She continued stacking her paperwork up. The sound of her tapping its edges against the wood of her desk seemed to send sparks through the air with each strike. He had pushed his paperwork to the side after a few moments of consideration—he’d do it later, as always—and settled for tapping his pen against the desk.

He watched her.

She ignored him.

So, here they were, alone in the office and accompanied only by the metronomic sound of his pen and the sharp snap of her paperwork. Silence didn’t used to be a problem for Riza. In fact, it was one of the few things she found comfort in, along with the feeling of hot sunlight on her face and tea in her coffee cup.

Now, though, it was a constant and bold-faced reminder to the both of them.  For Roy, who had given up trying to get her attention and dropped his pen back onto the desk, it was a reminder that no matter what happened behind closed doors that they would have to come back to reality. For Riza, though, it was a reminder that she could never _truly_ have what she wanted. That she would always have that unquenchable desire for something that would always slip out of her grasp.

Riza wasn’t ignoring him for no good reason, though. He knew that. At one point in time, she could have named off all the reasons to never look him in the eye when they were alone. Now, though, there were too many incidents to even archive them in the chaos that was her mind, much less name them off in any intelligent manner. Normally, she would have left for lunch around the same time as the boys, and not only because people whispered when they were alone together. There were definitely whispers, but they were normally silenced by his rumored promiscuity. The real reason that the Lieutenant and the Colonel didn’t stay alone together was much simpler.

It didn’t used to be this bad. It got much worse as time went on.  The first time had been so long ago that the details were blurred and vague. Her memories overlapped with the numerous other occasions the particular activity had occurred on. There was always one reoccurring theme that stood out: the fact that they were alone.

They’d gotten pretty skilled at dealing with it. She ignored him because she couldn’t stand the look in his eyes; it drove her to edge of insanity and tormented her as it pushed her off. Riza also didn’t speak because he couldn’t handle how effortlessly she kept her tone serious, and he was always more than happy to change that tone.

It hadn’t happened for a while; they’d been careful. It had probably been a few months, if she had to put a time frame on it. That had come to an end a few days prior, though. It had been enough for her to curse the existence of the elevator. They’d only been in there five minutes at the very best, but it was enough to drive her up a wall.

Literally.

Today, though, she was thankful they were at least stuck in the office, where she wasn’t forced to smell his cologne or feel his presence beside her. The Lieutenant glanced at the clock she kept at the edge of her desk, primarily for situations like the present one, and frowned when she realized the boys had only been gone for fifteen or so minutes. She’d have to sit through another forty-five minutes of the worst torture she could imagine.

Roy sighed, more out of boredom than shared agitation. It wasn’t that he didn’t share her little problem, because he had his fair share of struggling not to even look at her. Today, he was more worried that her paperwork might spontaneously combust if she continued ignoring him.

Riza’s head lifted slightly, almost like she was answering his sigh with a question. He smiled, though it wasn’t the sweet and innocent smile he normally flashed at her in the morning when she handed him his coffee. It was more suggestive and questioning, and she almost opened her mouth and told him not to answer a question with a question before stopped herself and turned away.

“You’re so serious,” she could practically _hear_ the smirk in his voice as she shivered slightly. Riza set her jaw, picking up her pen to continue scribbling on her paperwork and ignoring him. The words brought back memories of the elevator, when he’d said the same thing just after the doors closed.

She didn’t _want_ to think about it. It made her feel guilty because she honestly didn’t regret any part of it. Five minutes never seemed like a long time until she didn’t want it to end. Then it drug by painfully slow and insanely fast all at once. It was forever engraved on the frontal part of her brain.

It was too vivid. She wished she could take some parts of the memory and toss it out the window behind him. Every little reminder brought her back to that moment. She could still feel the cold metal of the wall against her back, the rough fabric of his jacket under her fingers as she slid it off his shoulders, and his arms pulling her up as she hooked one leg around his waist. There was also the fact that as she wrapped her arms around his neck to bring him closer that his hands seized the opportunity to run down her sides and against her thighs. Riza had no intention of remembering it all, especially how his hot breath felt against her ear when he whispered to her or how his fingers had snuck their way underneath her shirt. It was odd how the echoes of their groans bounced around the walls of the little metal room, as if it was a private symphony of their own enjoyment.

She didn’t need to add how her own hands had slipped under his shirt, or the fact that he’d pulled the barrette out of her hair somewhere along the way of their fumbling. Riza also wasn’t fond of the reminder that she’d spent most of the time looking for the sensitive spot on his neck that she knew for certain was there, or that she’d barely pushed him away in time for the two to get their appearances straightened back out before the doors opened.

Her cheeks reddened just at the thought of it. Out of habit, she looked away in an attempt to hide the discoloration of her face, but of course he caught it before she could.

That’s how it was between them. They’d been together for so long that she wondered if they were still individuals. It was as if somewhere along the way one soul had been split into two halves and set among the Earth. God tortured them in worst possible way, placing them together yet dooming them to always be part.  

She heard the squeak as his chair moved, and made a mental note to get it oiled, as she looked up to meet the eyes she’d been avoiding for the past twenty or so minutes. It only took a few seconds for her to fall back under that spell that he always seemed to cast on her. He jerked his head to side, and she stood to follow the request.

The once quiet office was filled with the sound of clattering and paper falling to the floor, and followed by a murmured threat regarding reorganizing his paperwork. There was a small chuckle and a quiet ‘you never change, do you?’ before the room fell silent to any listening ears.

An alchemist would say that separating a soul from its body is dangerous. A soul would do anything to be reunited with its organic body. There’s a certain force that compels the two, they would say, like the magnetic force between a proton and electron.  

So it’s no wonder that two halves of the same whole would indulge in the freedom of themselves, no matter how many times the military’s laws told them they could not.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I keep telling myself I'm going to write actual smut one day and things like this keep happening. Also, I'm not sure if elevators exist in the FMA universe, but I'm going to pretend they do.


End file.
